Clog – How to do the Brush Up

Published: 06-16-2009

Views: 24,643

Martha Hemingway is the director, choreographer, and instructor for the Happy Feet Cloggers, an adult clogging group from Fairfax, Virginia. She teaches beginner, intermediate, and performer clogging classes on Tuesday and Wednesday evenings for the City of Fairfax Parks and Rec Dept., Green Acres Center, 4401 Sideburn Road, Fairfax, Virginia.
Martha first learned to clog when she joined a Northern Virginia group called the Sugarfoot Cloggers in 1987. In September 2000 she founded the Happy Feet Cloggers. She was an instructor at the Potomac Double Down clogging workshop in Haymarket, Virginia, in 2006 and 2007 and an instructor at the Washington Area Square Dancers Cooperative Association’s (WASCA) clogging workshop in 2005 and 2006.
Her first experience as a dance instructor was teaching tap and jazz classes for the Fairfax County Rec Dept. She also taught tap at The Dance Company, a private dance studio, and for the Fairfax County Park Authority.
Martha’s “Happy Feeters” competed in the 2001 Mid-Atlantic Clogging Championship, held in Maryland each year. Her team brought home three 1st-place trophies, one 2nd-place trophy, and two 3rd-place trophies. Happy Feet is funded in part by the City of Fairfax Commission on the Arts.

Hi! My name is Martha Hemmingway and I am going to be teach some basic clogging steps. We are going to work on the brush right now, actually its called the brush up, and I think to demonstrate this the best, I need to turn sideways, so that you can see what my knee is going to do. To do a brush up, you take the ball of your foot and you brush forward, and bring your knee up, and you are doing exactly what the word says, you are doing a brush up, okay, and we will try it on the right foot, brush up. Facing the camera, it looks like this, brush up and brush up. Now, to add to this anytime you do this up movement, you are going to drop your supporting heel. Its just automatic in the clogging world whenever you do a brush up, you drop that supporting heel. Lets take a look at it from the back. Brush up on the left and as your knee comes up drop your right heel. Okay, now we will try it on the right. Brush up, and one and two, those are your counts. Alright, now this doesnt mean much right now, but when we start adding this to what's called the triple brush up it will be a lot more fun.

So, lets try the triple brush up. Again, triple meaning three, so thats going to be three double steps. Do three double steps left, right, left, double step, double step, double step, here comes your brush up, brush up. You go immediately from the knee thats in the air right back down and into a double step, double step, double step, double step, brush up, and a one and two and three and four and a five and a six and a seven and eight. I got to watch my balance when its a slope like that, try to keep your balance. Thats called the triple brush up, lets try it one more time. Five, six, left and right, double step, double step, double step, brush up. Double step, double step, double step, brush up. Another clogging turn that uses the brush up a lot is called a rocking chair, this is a fun one to do, lets try this one. On a rocking chair, you are going to do one double step on the left, one brush up on the right, dont forget to drop that heel and then come down into a basic, and as we remember a basic is a double step, rock step. Double step, rock step, basic we learned a while ago. So, lets try the rocking chair double step, brush up, and a basic. Five, six, seven, eight, double step, brush up, double step, rock step, double step, brush up, double step, rock step, double step, brush up, double step, rock step, double step, brush up, double step, rock step. Those are called rocking chairs and it doesnt incorporate the brush up just as the triple brush up we just learned. Okay, next we are going to work on some clogging combinations where we actually get to turn with them. Happy clogging!

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